BIG hoopla for nearly a year before this place finally opened on Toronto's hottest strip, Ossington Street (if I had a dollar for every time I said that -- going for the big bucks). When I wrote the Ossington Spotlight this past June, Union still had brown craft paper up in its windows, and Jason MacIsaac of Ministry of the Interior, a few doors down, was telling me that as a food gal, I should be keeping my eye on this place.
Didn't really have to try, actually, as Teo Paul, the popular-with-the-ladies chef-treprenuer behind Union, wrote an "Opening Soon" blog hosted on Toronto Life's website. While it kind of fell off by the end, no doubt due to permit hassles and Ossington street drama at the time, the anticipation rose in droves.
Finally in July, Union opened itself up to Toronto's voracious 'newest-and-best' dining hunters, and they've been packing the impeccably designed resto ever since. Last week, a little late to the game, I finally went.
Open all day -- breakfast, lunch and dinner -- Union is a French-contemporary, locavore concept, sourcing all they can from Ontario growers and producers. Listed on a blackboard beside the open kitchen are the chef's preferred suppliers of meats, produce and baked goods. The Chef, Teo Paul, rematerialized on the Toronto scene after years of cooking in Europe (most notably Paris and the Piedmonte, Italy), and instantly got people (among them many ladies) talking, with his fashionable eye and culinary promise. (I'll resist commenting on his looks because I don't know the man, and I want to go back there. If you're curious, follow the Union link above, and gawk away.)
We went with a rowdy, hungry group of 8, stuck with the 9(ish)pm seating (the place is ALWAYS packed, it's the only thing we could get.) We heard the food is good, French-based, with a definite headliner: the Cote de Boeuf. All of us being carnivores, we entertained the other mains as one might the previews before a film. We came for the ginormous hunk of Scotch Mountain (Meaford, Ontario) Meats prime rib, on the bone, and that's exactly what we got...at around 10:30 at night...which, despite it's perfect succulence, was not the best thing for a stomach.
Overall...
- Food; very satisfying, enticingly adventurous menu, heavy on the meats, perfectly up my alley.
Atmosphere; aided by the design and good looking people, is bang on. It would take me years to get sick of this place, if ever.
- Service; it's not your white-collar suck-up, but who needs that. Servers are easy on the eyes, know their specials, and aren't afraid to really get into the menu with you, should you want to discuss.
- Why should the rest of Canada care? Because it's one of the most effortless incarnations of a Parisian neighbourhood haunt I've ever seen in Canada (I've traveled), without that sense of inevitable failure implicit in the 'latest and greatest'. This place is going to stick around, and if you're ever in Toronto -- go!
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Union Restaurant
72 Ossington Ave
Toronto, ON
(416) 850-0093
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Have you been yet? What did you think?
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